"Maverick," Iceman says when Maverick walks into his office late in the afternoon, "Would you happen to know how the students got into my office this morning?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Maverick says, schooling his face into a perfect impression of innocence.
Iceman doesn't look impressed, though the effect of the stare is ruined somewhat by the flock of novelty balloons drifting around aimlessly behind his head. One Dachshund-shaped offender bumps into Ice's head as it meanders vaguely towards the far wall.
"Really, then you have know idea how they got the tray of brown 'e's onto my desk?" Ice asks, ignoring the small inflatable dog now caught on his hair in favor of giving Maverick a flat look. "Or why my mouse is now set to left-handed?"
"I can't believe that you would accuse me of being party to such unimaginative pranks," Maverick says in his best fake-offended tone. He can see a smile threatening to break through on Ice's face, but it quickly disappears.
"Last year you put googly eyes on things, Mav. You're not as creative as you think you are." Ice is quiet for a moment, eyes scanning the office for a moment. "Though I did find them in some weird places."
"You still haven't found all of them," Maverick states, thinking of the tiny googly eyes that will probably remain stuck to the bottom of Ice's shredder for the foreseeable future.
Iceman presses his mouth into a thin line, absorbing that news. "I'm going to choose to ignore that. Much like I'm ignoring the fact that my computer background has somehow been locked to a photo of the Air Force academy."
Mav smiles, not even a little bit ashamed. He'd bribed one of the new IT kids to help with that one.
"And I suppose you also didn't have anything to do with the stapler encased in epoxy, then?"
"Nope, must have been someone else." Maverick actually hadn't had anything to do with that one, which was odd. He's not sure who else had both access to Ice's office and the inclination to prank him.
"It wasn't even my stapler, Maverick," Ice says, gesturing to his perfectly un-epoxied stapler sitting out on his desk, "How is that even a prank?"
And yeah, Maverick's actually inclined to agree on that one. The lump of epoxy currently sitting on Iceman's windowsill was doing a pretty solid impersonation of modern art, but it wasn't exactly comedy gold.
"I really don't know," he says, still looking at the block. "That one's just weird." It's well done, he'll give whoever did it that. All the edges are sanded smooth, and the epoxy is free of any air bubbles.
Iceman has known him long enough to know exactly when he's lying or not, and turns around to give the epoxied stapler another confused look.
"I really thought that one was you."
"You clearly haven't opened the 'F' drawer of your filing cabinet then." Getting a fish tank to fit into the drawer had been more difficult than expected, but he'd managed to make it work eventually. Just like the small and poorly-balanced plastic wind-up fish toy that was hopefully still swimming around in the tank, rather than floating on its side and flapping ineffectually at the water.
The snails are real, at least.
Iceman walks over to said filing cabinet, dodging another helium-filled dog on his way, and opens up the relevant drawer.
The office is silent for a long moment while Iceman takes in the sight of his newly acquired pets.
Just when Maverick is starting to wonder if he should say something, Iceman closes the drawer, and turns around with a bewildered look on his face.
"Why is there a bone floating in the tank?"
"Good calcium for the snails. The lady at the pet store says it keeps their shells strong."
Ice scrubs a hand over his face. "I see you've put some thought into this one. Where, pray tell, are the files from that drawer?"
"In front of the 'X's. There's never anything in that drawer." Except for the year Maverick had filled it with dvd copies of the X-Files, of course.
Iceman glances over at the 'X' drawer, then turns back to the drawer containing the snails.
"Do these things need light?" he asks, opening the drawer just enough to peek at the snails.
"Not really," Maverick says, "The sun raises their temperature too much, or something like that. I've got the booklet at home." He was sure Ice would be reading that tonight.
"They are kind of cute," Ice says, still looking at the snails. "They're going to need a bigger tank, though. Being this cramped can't be good for them."
Maverick had already thought of that, as well. "I already put a bigger tank on hold at the pet store in case you wanted to keep them." One of the students had agreed to take the snails if Ice didn't want to keep them; apparently her brother bred them as a hobby and wouldn't say no to a few free additions.
This time the smile actually manages to break all the way out. Ice might be able to live up to his name in front of the students, but he couldn't hide anything from Maverick, including that he had a soft spot for animals a mile wide.
"So, snails?" Ice asks, breaking his gaze away from the snails to look towards Maverick.
"Snails," Maverick confirms, nodding.
Iceman steps forward, pressing a quick kiss to Maverick's mouth.
"Thanks, Mav," Ice says, smiling softly at Maverick.
Maverick is about to pull Ice in for another kiss when one of the balloons- a cow this time- floats in between them, letting out a synthesized 'moo' sound as it bonks into Mav's nose.
Iceman doubles over laughing, for much longer than the situation really justifies.
Maverick crosses his arms, half angry at the cow for ruining the moment, half embarrassed at himself for being mad at an inflatable cow.
"You so deserved that," Ice says, when he's finished laughing at Maverick. "Now get these balloons out of my office before someone ends up in the infirmary for a balloon injury."
Maverick gathers them up by their strings and is thinking about where to take them- there were only so many places where one could store twenty or so inflatable representations of various animals, airplanes, and anatomical features, after all- when Iceman calls out to him.
"Oh, and Maverick? Don't forget to stop by your office today." There's a smug grin on Ice's face, and Mav can't help but grin as well, wondering what Iceman has in store for him.
He grabs his menagerie of balloons, takes one last look at Ice sitting in front of the petrified stapler, and heads to find out.
